Moms who banned DnD

[Desdichado]

You go, Trainz! The 80s rock! I too spent my whole adolescence there, and I have a certain fond nostalgia for the time period. Sometimes I even miss the Soviets. sigh. I see no reason to assume the 80s were a Dark Age in any way. In many ways, they were less cynical and materialistic than today.

 

[eris404]

Reading through these posts has been pretty interesting. My mom loved D&D because she thought it was a creative, "educational" game. My parents were more than happy to buy books and minis for my birthday and Christmas. To them, it was like buying math books or flash cards.

The small town I grew up in never had any problems with D&D that I can ever recall. In fact, most people, especially the kids at school, thought the game was uncool and geeky more than anything else. I can't remember teachers ever complaining about it, and I went to a Catholic school (although in retrospect it was surprisingly progressive. There were lots of non-Christian kids who went to the school because it was better than the public ones, and they were encouraged to talk about their religions.).

I did have one bad experience with a classmate over D&D though. I probably have told this story here before, but I brought Deities & Demigods to school one day and was showing it to some friends. One of them was Hindu and was shocked and offended to see her gods in the book. I was mortified.

 

[Desdichado]

frikkin double post.

 

[Sir Falke]

The worst part was when she told us all that playing the game would insert subliminal messages in our minds to call special phone numbers. Supposedly, after everyone in your house was asleep, the dread D&D gamer would awake in a trance, call this phone number and be told to horrible things like kill their parents or light fire to their siblings.

Mom_:"Darling? Are you reading that awfull D&D book again??"
Reply_:"Oh, no... Nothing that dangerous. It's only the original, real Necronomicon!"


The only concerns my parents had with my hobby were, again, the waste of time and money it implies. No matter if I learned english by reading all the rulebooks (so, my spelling/grammar mistakes refer to bad rditing of those books. ).
I'm 29 now and I still hear from time to time the old "Are you STILL playing those games???"

 

[jarlaxlecq]

You go, Trainz! The 80s rock! I too spent my whole adolescence there, and I have a certain fond nostalgia for the time period. Sometimes I even miss the Soviets. sigh. I see no reason to assume the 80s were a Dark Age in any way. In many ways, they were less cynical and materialistic than today.

Ok maybe i'm being hard on the 80s, i did spend a good part of my youth in them but you lost me with being less materialistic. the 80s were the decade of greed and decadence. People were watching "WALL STREET" and listening to "Material Girl." The 70s would be a better example of being less materialistic

 

[Sage]

I was introduced to D&D through my brother having about it in school, I don't think we ever got around to gaming though. Then I saw the 2nd edition DMG in our library and showed it to my brother, by given the cover and the booring content (I was 10 and didn't read much, and thought that the so-called "heroes" didn't look very hero-like) we put it down again.

When we found the PH we were hooked, though

My mom is very religious (as I am) and is canadian, so I think she got a little of the D&D is satanik thing, and was a little uneasy when we started playing. It was, however, her that had taken us through Narnia and the LotR, so she didn't have much to say. Anyway, after watching us game several times the only thing she had against it was the noise level
Now she's even encouraging in our hobby (probably because I've made a lot of friends through it).

My father accepts it but "just doesn't get it" and doesn't like me using (almost) all my time on it

Of course, starting in the 90's and in Denmark probably helped. And boy, can I feel a steady increase in gamers every year in this country

Sage

 

[Desdichado]

The presence of a movie named Wall Street and a song named "Material Girl" hardly make the decade more materialistic than the current one.

Still, this is veering dangerously into wildly off-topic here...

 

[KDLadage]

Anyhow the reason why I'm posting is to see if any of you have had similiar experiences. and if you wouldn't mind sharing them

Yes... my mother attempted unsuccessfully several times to get me away from that "spawn of satan game." I thought for sure I wa sin for it when she saw the movie MAZES AND MONSTERS.

But... she was drunk so much of the time that most of her rules were fairly easy to bypass...

 

[NewJeffCT]

My parents never had a problem with me playing D&D. They knew it was an extension of my love of reading – I had always read at a much higher grade level than my age. Plus, they liked that I was involved in a social activity because I was normally painfully shy (I was voted shyest in my class in both junior high school and high school). 25 years later, I am now 36 years old married with a 6 month old daughter. I have a decent job, and I am hopefully only five years away from paying off my first house – if I don’t buy a new one before that time. So, I think I turned out okay. Good job by my parents.

 

[Mercule]

They do. They completely discredit Christianity. People like me see them and think "A belief set that produces people like these can't possibly be the work of the Benevolent Lord. Hmm. Those Buddhists seem like nice people...."

Thanks, Brett. I get all warm and fuzzy when I hear things like that, but I'll get over it.

(On the other hand, hate-mongering gets more press than being a generally decent fellow, so I can't really blame you.)